


Fugue

by Pares (kormantic)



Series: Palimpsest [2]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Dubious Consent, Holed Up In A Cheap Hotel, M/M, Trying to Remember Things You Forgot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1997-07-06
Updated: 1997-07-06
Packaged: 2018-09-18 07:02:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9373442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kormantic/pseuds/Pares
Summary: Mulder has the opportunity to question Krycek about their apparent abduction and confinement in a car trunk.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Big kisses for the kind assistance of Callisto, who did her best to keep me in line grammatically, Janis, for warm praise and insight, and most 'specially Maria, for hand holding and incisive commentary supreme.

Long fingers tensed, the wild roar of the crowd hushed: the whole world was the nubby orange surface of a basketball, and just as he was about to make free throw history for--

The trill of the cell phone broke his concentration and the ball bounced off the backboard, wildly ricocheting off Fox Mulder's bland cream colored walls.

With a muttered curse, he stilled the ringing.

"Pavlov's dog."

"You said it, I didn't." The smile in Scully's voice was lost in her next statement. "Mulder, I just got a call from an Anthony Burbury at the Free Clinic on 5th and Central. He said a boy brought in a man he'd seen thrown from a car today-- and that this man has asked to see us."

"Who is it?"

"Burbury says he refuses to give his name, but from the description he gave me... It would seem to be Alex Krycek."

Mulder nearly dropped the phone.

"I'll meet you there in twenty minutes."

"Mulder--"

He hung up.

Scully had been careful to show him the same respect for his emotional privacy that she had expected from him after her own abduction, the difference being that she claimed that she could not remember any of the details of those missing months. He could appreciate her position, knew the special hell of being unable to ask just what had happened in the 36 hours he'd been gone.

She knew almost as much as he did: that he'd been set free in an abandoned parking lot, that he'd woken up in the trunk of a car with no idea how long he had been there, that he'd been in that trunk with Alex Krycek. And that was as much as Mulder had been willing to tell her. Scully had assured him that he would have been sick with dehydration if he'd been in the trunk for the entire time he'd been missing, and that unnerved him. Where had he been _before_ that? He wanted to tell her how afraid he'd been, still was, to explain about Krycek...

But what could he say to her? How could he explain that his body had betrayed them both?

*

Krycek's expression was stony. Mulder found that he couldn't meet the man's eyes, and yet could not look away entirely. During Scully's low exchange with Burbury, Mulder tried to make sense of what he saw.

Alex was absolutely still, expression closed, as if tensing for a blow. There was nothing about his posture that suggested that he was paying attention to anything except the eye chart on the wall across from him in the shabby examination room. He was wearing a stained t-shirt, one sleeve pushed up to reveal a spectacular bruise high on his bicep, his jacket draped across his lap. All told, he looked passionless and disconnected, but Mulder noticed that Krycek's knuckles were white from clenching the lip of the examination table. Mulder's own nails were biting into his palms. He opened his hands and absently smoothed them down the front.

After Burbury left the room, Scully relayed what she had learned.

"Aside from some nasty bruises, there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with him."

"Good. Cuff him, Scully." Mulder wasn't about to touch him. "He's got some explaining to do."

With a wordless glance and only the slightest hesitation, Scully arranged Krycek's arms, closing the manacles behind the unresponsive man's back and drawing him to his feet.

She then fixed her partner with an expectant look.

"We'll take him to a hotel." His voice was firm. "I don't think he'd live long enough in custody to do us any good. And he owes us... the truth."

Nodding, Scully handed Mulder Krycek's battered black leather jacket, and led their prisoner out.

*

Krycek had not spoken a single word in the forty minutes they had had him in their custody. Now seated in the back of Scully's nondescript four door, he was asleep or feigning it remarkably. His impossibly lush lashes brushed his cheeks, face smooth in repose, mouth parted slightly, hair tousled as a schoolboy's.

Mulder still had Krycek's jacket in his hands, curiously relieved to find that it didn't smell of cloves. Still, he recognized the undercurrent of Alex's sweat, and his hands clenched and relaxed against the leather as he kept his gaze trained on Krycek's face, reflected in the rearview mirror. Mulder's fingers remembered the angle of Krycek's cheek as well as his eyes did. God.

Mulder ignored Scully's silent questions. Knowing she could read his anxiety, he wished he could find something to say to reassure her. Instead, he took his eyes from Krycek's face and forced his attention out the passenger window. He saw the filmy reflection of his own face in the glass, saw that his eyes were wide and confused, that his lower lip was dented from the nervous pressure of his teeth.

*

The motel was an eminently practical squat one story affair, boasting both kitchenettes and hourly rates. Once they had a room, and Krycek seated on a bed, Mulder began his interrogation.

"You asked for us. Why?"

Krycek's dark brows knit.

"I asked for you? Who told you that?"

Mulder paused, so Scully answered for him, crossing her arms and taking a step toward Krycek. She cocked her head to the side in order to read his expression.

"The man who treated you at the clinic contacted us, at your request."

His eyes cool, Krycek lifted his chin slightly. "Why would I do that?"

"We were hoping you could tell us," she prompted.

"You'd better keep hoping, sweetheart. At this point, I wouldn't tell you even if I knew."

Mulder loomed over him, eyes hooded and voice cold.

"What's the last thing you remember, you son of a bitch?"

Eyes widening slightly, Krycek started, swallowed once, and then resumed his calm demeanor, focusing on a spot on the ruined carpet.

Mulder had a fistful of Krycek's t-shirt before he knew it, and dragged Krycek's ear to his lips. The too-familiar odor of Krycek's sweat burned in Mulder's nostrils. The sweat was fresh; he'd apparently gotten cleaned up at the clinic. The shirt was stained with mud and blood, but a delicate note of laundry soap lingered beneath it.

"What do you remember, Krycek?"

"Your even temper and your partner's lovely signature scent. What is it, Scully, White Shoulders?"

Mulder shook Krycek until he heard his teeth click, and then dropped him, backing away in disgust.

Adding to the collage of stains already designing the carpet, Krycek spat casually and smiled, his white teeth framed with blood from where he'd bitten his tongue.

"Tell me Mulder, are you turned on by the smell of formaldehyde, because, really, it works for her, doesn't it?"

Mulder actually hissed. Stepping between them, Scully kept her own tone even.

"What's today's date?"

Krycek looked at her blankly.

"It's the 11th," his answer was automatic, toneless.

"The 11th was two weeks ago. Today is Thursday, October 25th. Can you remember where you've been?"

Krycek blinked. "What are you talking about?"

"Do you remember Memphis?"

His lips moved, but no words formed.

At some point, Mulder realized that Krycek was wearing _his_ trousers, the ones Mulder had woken to find him wearing in the parking lot. A sense of unreality threatened to make his vision swim. The pants, too, were torn and stained, and yet they did not look as if they'd been worn for two weeks straight.

"What's the last thing you remember before the clinic?" His question was low and guttural.

"I hit my head," Krycek mewled, words suddenly slurred. He sounded like a sulky three-year-old.

Mulder and Scully exchanged glances.

"Burbury didn't mention that." She tipped Krycek's head back, drawing a pen light from her purse. Shining it in his eye, Krycek's pupil contracted to a pinpoint and /the sun shining through the bullet hole is still strong, almost tangible, but not enough to see by-- until Krycek rears up and twists his upper body around as far as he can. The pupil of his right eye shrinks like a cat's in the beam/

Mulder's mouth went dry. His mind was flooded-- not with images, but sensations.

Saturation. It was as if he had absorbed Krycek in those hours. Every time he'd closed his eyes since, he found himself in that trunk, nostrils flooded with the smoky mingled fragrance of cloves and sweat and the sharper scent of fear.

"He doesn't seem to have a concussion, Mulder... but--"

Shaking his head to clear it, Mulder came back to the squalid motel room.

"Krycek, listen to me, in the trunk you said that the last thing you remembered was falling asleep in your hotel room..."

"What trunk?"

Mulder felt like the word cudgel his brain, a clubbing litany of what-what-what's chorusing in his thoughts until they ceased to be anything but sound. With a curse, Mulder aborted the question, and tried to unclench his jaw.

"Forget the trunk. You fell asleep in the hotel room. Do you remember anything else? Anything at all?"

"Music," Krycek said softly, after a period of silence. "Music. Something... classical. A march or something."

Avid, nodding, Mulder leaned in, glad for a fact to cling to. Any fact.

"What was the piece?"

"I don't _know_ , Mulder. I didn't go to a fucking conservatory," he snapped.

"No, but you went to Memphis, or you were taken there. Why?"

"I _don't_ remember. I don't know anything! Leave me the fuck alone!"

They were both panting, eyes locked. Scully's hand on his shoulder brought him back to himself, and he straightened up, turning toward her. She led him to the doorway and spoke soothingly.

"Mulder, it could be that he doesn't remember. In times of extreme duress, people have been known to slip into a fugue state, where they seem to behave in a conscious and rational way, but are unable to remember the period or their actions during that time upon returning to their normal conscious state. You said yourself that he believed that he was going to be executed; that stress could have triggered this... blank wall."

//Conscious maybe, rational, no. There was nothing rational about Krycek begging me to...// Mulder wet his lips and shifted, blocking Scully's view of Krycek and lowering his head.

She took his hand in both of hers, and gazed up at him, her entire physical attitude expressing her concern for him.

"I don't know what happened to you in that trunk, Mulder, and I don't think you're sure either, but Krycek may simply not have the information you're looking for. I want you to know that I respect your privacy, and I understand your... reluctance to explain the specifics of your abduction, but I also want you to know that I'm here for you, and that nothing that happened to you during that time will change my opinion of you." Her gaze was lucid, direct, eyes as blue as an ocean sky.

Mulder was aware of the unspoken promise there, the reassurance, the understanding. Could it be that she knew-- suspected? After her abduction, Scully had been unable to recall those lost months, and Mulder had believed that, accepted it. And he felt like a coward for not recounting his own lost time. What he _did_ remember, with an awful clarity and a tactile echo that set his teeth on edge, made his groin ache.

He squeezed her hand and tried to smile.

"I know that. Thank you." I want to tell you, Scully. I will. But not today.

He glanced furtively over his shoulder at the man seated on the bed, and brought her back to the case.

"Scully, he may have been hypnotized."

"What makes you think that?"

"He said he remembered music. During World War II, the Nazi's experimented with hypnotically induced fugue states, so that if their spies were ever interrogated, they would be unable to divulge any classified information, even if they wanted to. And they used music to condition their subjects."

"Why go to all that trouble? Why not just kill him?"

"If there's only one thing that we've learned about the Consortium is that they do what they want, when they want, and always for a reason."

"We've learned no such thing." Her eyes snapped fiercely. "Their actions are random and obfuscating, and their reasons may never be known. They may not even _have_ reasons. Sometimes, I'm not even sure that there's a They."

An old argument, and his jaw tightened automatically.

"I believe we were let go for a reason, and I think that Krycek knows what that reason is."

Her eyes glinted now; her concern had been replaced by anger.

"Why?"

"Scully... I know you've got questions about what happened, but I've told you as much as... I can. A man I didn't recognize let us out of the trunk and left us in the parking lot. But something about the way /Krycek had kissed him. Dropped his head and kissed him, lingeringly, a sweet attention evident in his posture, a yearning that was communicated only by the contact of lips, as the rest of his body stood away, swaying slightly, and he delved into the gray old man's nearly lipless mouth/

Mulder ignored his insistent eidetic memory and pressed on.

"...he spoke to Krycek made me think that he knew him."

"Made you believe that Krycek has been hypnotized and that he can tell you what he knows? That he knows anything to tell?" Her demand looked as though it had wearied her. She ran a hand down her wrist and tipped her head up to meet his eyes again.

"I have to know, Scully," he pleaded.

"Of course you do, Mulder. It's who you are." Her anger had already faded; only the ghost of frustration flavored her sigh.

"I think... I think he was in on it. That he was a distraction... that something was supposed to come of my abduction. I think they wanted to learn something."

"I think they did," she said softly. The thin exasperation in her voice floored him; Mulder felt his stomach fist. "You never told me, Mulder. You never explained it. Why did you let him go?"

And Mulder had no answer for her.

Krycek had been silent for the time it had taken Scully to get the phone company to triangulate his location using his cell phone. There in that parking lot, Krycek's hair had been burnished by the sodium glow of the streetlights they stood under, his face gilded. He'd accepted the clasp of the cuff on his wrist without remark, watched Mulder close the other cuff on his own wrist and pocket the key without interest. With docile passivity, he'd ignored Mulder's pleas, questions, threats. He had revealed nothing: not the old man's name, not his involvement with him, not how he'd come to possess Mulder's wallet, phone, or guns. All the items he'd wordlessly handed him when Mulder had woken up beside him on the asphalt.

No answers at all.

"Never mind." She took a deep breath. "I'm going home, Mulder. We have nothing to hold him for, and there's no reason to believe that he wouldn't either be killed or immediately released should we bring him in for formal questioning. I'll leave my keys and take a cab." She pressed her key ring into his palm and he stared at it dumbly, pressure like thumbs behind his eyes. She closed her hand over his.

"Be careful."

He could only nod.

She shook her red hair back and smoothed her jacket, stealing one last look at Krycek before closing the motel room door behind her.

* * *

 

She'd left him alone. Alone with Krycek. Mulder found it difficult to swallow, and impossible to turn around. He stared at the door, silently willing Scully to return to him, wondering why he hadn't asked her to stay.

Behind him, he heard the creak of mattress springs as Krycek readjusted himself on the bed.

What am I going to do with him? If I can't make him talk, and I can't bring him in...

He'd come to a similar impasse in the parking lot. Which was why, in the end, he'd let Krycek go.

Wasn't it? Or was it something more, something about what had happened to him, to the both of them, in the suffocating confines of an executioner's car trunk?

Mulder wasn't prepared to answer that question just yet. He made himself face Krycek, and saw that he'd lain down on the pilled sheets, drawn his knees up almost to his chin. Krycek's eyes had closed again, and once more his face had achieved its still serenity, one that Mulder oddly envied.

The vague light in the dim motel room was kinder to Krycek than the sunlit back seat of Scully's car had been. Fewer lines were visible around his almost colorless mouth, and his face was not so hard edged as it had seemed then. His short nose was mashed slightly into the pillow, and his visible nostril flexed slightly as he snorted in his sleep.

Again, Mulder felt a twinge of envy. How long had it been since he'd been able to relax enough to take a nap, let alone two in one day? He decided to let his prisoner sleep; it would give him time to think.

Loosening his tie, Mulder shrugged out of his jacket. He draped it over the trench coat which in turn had been laid over an unstable three-legged Formica table, and flung himself in the only available chair. He heard an alarming creak in the molded plastic... but it held, and he rested his elbows on his knees and proceeded to frown at his steepled fingers.

For the better part of an hour, Krycek hardly stirred.

Eventually, Mulder left his chair to pace the length of the room. He stopped mid-stride when he heard Krycek call his name. Spinning on his heel, he put his hand on the pistol at his hip, galvanized by the urgency in the man's tone.

It came again, almost whispered, but full of fear.

"Mulder... Don't let me. Because I can... I will..." Krycek began to move then, small shrugging of his shoulders, clenching of the hands behind his back. "I _will_..." Krycek assured the Mulder in his dream. The edge of menace was nearly eclipsed by a wavering note of... pleading?

"Krycek," Mulder began. He realized that he'd hardly said the word aloud, and when he repeated it, his voice sounded hoarse on his own ears, as if he'd been shouting for hours.

The man on the bed stiffened and opened his eyes almost simultaneously. His eyes widened, and then focused on Mulder, who had reached out to touch Krycek's shoulder, intending to shake him from his dream. He did not speak, merely blinked at his captor, and held still.

"You were dreaming." Mulder drew his hand away, fingertips snagging across Krycek's cotton t-shirt. The man was fever hot. "Do your bosses know that you talk in your sleep? I bet they wouldn't like that."

"I don't--" Krycek spat, but then stopped himself. His eyebrows tilted up at Mulder in silent question.

"Relax, spyboy. You didn't divulge anything worth hearing."

Krycek turned his head back to the pillow and stared off into the distance.

Mulder was suddenly impatient. "Krycek, I--"

Krycek cut him off.

"I need to take a piss," he said shortly.

Great.

"Are you gonna uncuff me or what?" His head was raised now, brows slanting with disdain. "Well? It's that or pull me out yourself."

Mulder's hands had curled again, and although he felt a strange leap of terror in his gut, he merely grunted dismissively and rooted through his pockets for his keys. He drew his gun and leveled it at Krycek's supine form. After a moment, he sighed noisily, and placed it back in his holster. He juggled the keys in his hand thoughtfully, half-listening to the loose-change jingle as he tossed them lightly.

"If I let you go, would you try to answer my questions? Because I can't keep you here. And I can't put you in a holding cell, because they'd only have to rinse you off the walls. But I want-- I would like you to answer some questions first."

Krycek said nothing for some time. At last, he nodded. Once.

Mulder tossed the keys on the rucked up bedspread beside Krycek's hands and watched with some fascination as Krycek freed himself. He had a heavy elegance; lithe and muscled and completely masculine. Tensing his shoulders, legs bent at the knees, Krycek raised his hips and wrestled minutely with the key. Mulder wondered why he didn't just swing his legs over the bed and sit up... But he was distracted by the rather alarming tightness of Krycek's-- or rather _Mulder's_ \-- pants.

Hips lifting slightly, the thin trousers stretched taught against Krycek's crotch, leaving little to Mulder's imagination-- or his memory. Mulder found himself mesmerized by the slow sea roll of Krycek's hips as he shifted, finally unlocking one cuff. Blinking, Mulder wondered if he'd be able to extricate himself from a similar bond in the same amount of time, or with anything approaching Krycek's controlled grace. After witnessing Krycek's performance, he suddenly doubted that he would have been able to free himself at all.

Tossing the keys and cuffs back to Mulder, Krycek scudded off the mattress and into the narrow curtained alcove that contained a toilet and a sink framed by rotting tile grout. Mulder could hear the steady drill of Krycek's urine against the porcelain and asked himself, not for the first time that day, why he had even bothered with Krycek in the first place.

* * *

 

There was music in his head, had been ever since he'd opened his eyes to see Mulder leaning over him. Music.

He zipped up, flushed and rinsed his hands under the dribbling tap. Krycek figured that he'd gotten out of the handcuffs just in time: any more friction and he would have been too hard to piss. There was a slightly lighter colored square on the wall paper above the crumbling tile of the sink that suggested a mirror had once hung there, but Krycek didn't need one. He knew his face, knew it better than he knew Fox Mulder's. But only just.

He'd managed nicely with the details, even without the benefit of Mulder's eidetic memory: the frowning chin, the sulky mouth, the greengold eyes, eyes that reminded him inexplicably of leaves made translucent by sunlight. Mulder's brown hair was longer now, but otherwise, his appearance matched the image that Krycek had carried behind his eyes since he'd first met Mulder, hunched over a desk, transcribing audio tape.

Of course he'd seen Mulder before that. He'd had him under almost constant surveillance for most of the week before he'd actually introduced himself, but the picture he had chosen to remember him by had been that one. Mulder at work, concentrating even though he'd been obviously bored, Mulder absorbed in his own thoughts.

He had never given much thought to why. Krycek was not above taking things that caught his eye: trinkets mostly, or carelessly laid wallets; a pair of the Well Manicured Man's gold cufflinks had once found their way into his pocket, as had the Smoker's favorite Zippo lighter. Mulder's face he'd taken almost without realizing he'd done it. And as he'd had no pockets that would hold it, he'd put where he imagined he might be able to keep it.

In his dreams.

Not sweet dreams. He'd read somewhere once that in order to have sweet dreams, you needed to live a sweet life. And Krycek's life was as far from sweetness as he guessed it could be. But they gave him a brand of succor, all the same.

Krycek dreamt almost nightly of the Silo, and of its blackness. The Silo's darkness was not just that of lightless space, but the invasive oily pitch that had masked his thoughts. Sometimes he could still taste it in his mouth: the Slick, that living ooze, dredged from the bottom of the sea by the crew of a salvage ship. And in his dreams, in that looming void he could not make himself forget, Mulder would call his name.

With Mulder came light enough to see by. Krycek would be able to see his own hands held in front of him, could make out Mulder's face, his long body. Always, Krycek would recognize his own reflection in the smokey jade of Mulder's eyes, because Mulder was forever drawing him close, fingers knotted in Krycek's shirt. Eternally shaking with a burning hatred for him, one Alex Krycek.

And just lately there had been music. A jangling discord that served as backdrop for the desperate confrontations that raged in his dreams, the repetitive, anguished combats that always ended the same way: with Mulder dead, and the grip of a gun clenched in his own sweatslicked hand.

That music rang in his ears now, made him shudder. He had woken himself up not a few times with Mulder's name on his lips. Never in his waking moments had he wanted the death he dealt Mulder in that sleeping world.

"Krycek, if you're going to climb out the bathroom window, hurry up already. I can't stand the suspense."

Pushing the plastic curtain aside, Krycek walked out of the bathroom. Mulder had his back to him, his hands on his hips. His head was low, and Krycek could hear him muttering. His stance suggested that he was profoundly irritated, his curses hinted that his irritation was with himself.

Mulder must have been very preoccupied indeed to turn his back on a man like Krycek.

"You must be losing your edge," he sighed into Mulder's ear, as he pressed his body and Mulder's own gun against his back. Krycek had been picking pockets since high school, but even without the expertise of long practice, he'd have been able to slip Mulder's gun from the holster. Mulder hadn't even bothered to refasten the leather catch.

Mulder tensed. Krycek could almost hear him berate himself for letting his guard down. Poor baby.

"It's my turn to ask the questions now, Mulder." He prodded the small of Mulder's back with the muzzle of the gun. "Sit down." He pushed Mulder's taller, gangly form toward the bed.

"What are you doing, Krycek? I was going to let you go anyway." Mulder seemed calm, bemused.

Krycek clucked his tongue.

"Shut up," he warned flatly. "You'll speak when spoken to and not before. This isn't Jeopardy, Mulder. I don't want to hear anything phrased in the form of a question." He rapped Mulder's jaw, once, not very hard, with the butt of the gun.

Mulder must have clipped his tongue, because when he drew the back of his hand across his mouth it came away bloody. Good. We're even. "I can give as good as I get."

Mulder's eyes went wide at that, and Krycek let an ugly chuckle leave his chest. He backed away, just out of the reach of Mulder's long legs, and dropped into a crouch. He peered up at his former partner and grinned. Glint of teeth in the swampy light.

"Now, why don't you tell me what _you_ remember...?"

"What do you mean?"

Krycek lifted the agent's service weapon and aimed it, almost lazily, at Mulder's left kneecap.

"Ah-ah-ah," he chided. "No questions." His voice was easy, goodnatured.

Mulder was pale, but his jaw was set. Krycek could tell that he was going to push his luck. And then he did.

"What do you want me to remember?"

Krycek's finger tensed on the trigger-- but he eased off.

"Don't make me shoot you." Krycek had meant his voice to be casual, but it sounded... like a plea.

An atonal duel of horns in his ears made him squeeze his eyes shut. What was he doing?

"Tell me about the interrogation. What did they want from you?"

"What are you talking about?" Mulder blurted before he realized what he'd said. And then he'd shivered. Shivered. Christ.

"Damn it, Mulder, don't you know how to shut up?" He placed the gun on the floor, and sat down beside it, tailor style. "I'd rather not have the cops on my ass just yet," he said by way of explanation.

"I'm talking about you and that fucker you call Cancer Man. And Hinser. They had you under the hotlights. For hours. They shot you up with so much shit that it's amazing that you can still tie your own shoes. I wanna know what they asked you before you passed out."

"I don't remember that. I woke up in the trunk... with you. That's all."

"What fucking trunk?"

Mulder stared at him.

"You were... I was missing for thirty-six hours, but the only part I remember was waking up... and the man who let us out. He was in his sixties, white hair, long coat."

"Was he short?"

Mulder nodded.

"It was probably Hinser."

This time, Mulder didn't ask, only twitched his eyebrows.

"Hinser's an... associate. Cancer Man must have owed him a favor." Krycek felt the hairs raise on the back of his neck. "Mulder..." He kept his eyes on the carpet. "What did Hinser... do to me?"

It took him a moment to recognize the expression on Mulder's face: pity.

"I'm not sure." After a pause, he continued. "He let us go. But before he did... He called you, and you went to him... and you kissed him." Mulder ended on a whisper.

Krycek kept his face a still mask, even though he felt his guts roll. The music had receded, but at these words, a frenzied squeal of horns swelled again. Ignoring the ugly prickle that lifted the hair at the back of his neck, Krycek made himself recount what he _could_ remember. It was better than letting his imagination construct perfectly plausible scenarios concerning what he could _not_.

"I was watching the security camera. I couldn't hear what they were saying. That smoking bastard just kept puffing away, and Hinser held your head. It's what he does. He likes his job. He never hits you, but..." Krycek trailed off, was startled to hear Mulder speak.

"You were naked, handcuffed to something. You told me they were going to shoot you."

They didn't make eye contact, but Krycek knew that they'd forged an unspoken truce. No questions, then. Only an exchange of information: fact for fact.

"Hinser doesn't work for Cancer Man, but now and again he lends a hand to one of their... projects. And Cancer Man will owe him for them. Hinser knows things..." Ways to hurt you.

"After he kissed you... I blacked out. When I woke up again, you were wearing my pants."

Mulder's words were almost eclipsed now by the almost constant wail of brass in Krycek's head, and his own toneless statements.

"Secrets. About everybody, even the Cancer Man. I was there because they'd finally run me down. Hinser was the only reason I hadn't been killed upon capture."

"You handed me my weapons back," Mulder recited. "But you wouldn't talk to me."

"Hinser wanted me for a project, and I'd done him a favor myself once. He had enough pull with Cancer Man to get the both of us released into his custody. I didn't know what he wanted with you _or_ me, but it I knew that black lunged fuck would put in bullet in my head for sure. And that's the last thing I remember: watching Hinser drag you out to his old Plymouth."

"And while we were in the trunk," Mulder swallowed loudly, made an odd clicking sound that Krycek attributed to the dryness of his throat. "While we were there, and you thought you were going to die..."

Krycek lifted his head and gazed tensely at the man on the bed. Eyes rooted to the carpet between his feet, Mulder had the glazed, helpless, horrified look of a witness to a three car pile-up.

"You asked me to... to fuck you."

Taking a hissing, indrawn breath, Krycek rolled to his knees, then into a sitting crouch, balanced on the balls of his feet.

"And I did."

Lifting his eyes to meet Krycek's, Krycek could see that they were glassy with unshed tears; he looked nauseated.

For a moment, the silence in the motel room was so profound that even the music in his head stopped, and Krycek was half-convinced that he could hear the beat of Mulder's heart.

Forgetting the gun, Krycek sprang forward, rushing the man seated on the bed. Mulder made no move, and Krycek curled his fingers in Mulder's hair and jerked his head back.

Mulder's wide gold-flecked eyes swam with tears, and his mouth was slack. He made no attempt to pull away from the hand Krycek had fisted in his hair; he merely waited. There was a fathomless sorrow in his eyes, and a self-disgust so overwhelming that Krycek was stunned by it.

So stunned that he loosened his fingers.

So stunned that he covered Mulder's eyes with his other hand.

There was a rustling gasp from the other man, and Krycek saw Mulder's knuckles whiten. //He thinks I'm going to break his neck.//

And maybe he would have. On another day, for another reason, maybe no reason at all, he might have jerked Mulder's head sharply to one side and watched him go limp.

Instead, he kissed him. Crash of cymbals.

His weight pushed Mulder to the mattress, and his hands skimmed down Mulder's sides. As he parted Mulder's lips with his tongue, past the teeth and into the heat, he hooked his thumbs in the waist of Mulder's trousers. He could taste Mulder's blood there, felt him wince slightly at the sting of contact. Krycek ignored it. Raising his hips slightly, he unbuckled Mulder's belt, and drew away, letting Mulder's lower lip slip from between his teeth.

Mulder lay there, expression unchanged, but for the faintest light of surprise. Krycek opened Mulder's trousers and jerked them down with his boxers, past his hips, revealing Mulder's soft penis, strangely vulnerable against the thicket of hair at the joining of his thighs.

Krycek was somewhat stymied by his own lack of arousal; here was Mulder, his for the taking, and he couldn't get it up. No matter. Hardly pausing, he clasped Mulder's shoulder and rolled him over onto his belly. Still, Mulder made no move.

He yanked Mulder's pants off after stripping off his socks and shoes, and nudged Mulder's thighs apart with his knee. Squatting like a catcher, he imprisoned both of Mulder's hands in his own, and exhaled against the crease of Mulder's ass.

He realized that Mulder was undulating slightly against the mattress, chafing his cheek again and again against the sheets, mouth compressed, eyes screwed shut. He made no sound.

When he felt the muscular stab of Krycek's tongue pushing into his anus, Mulder started, and humped the mattress convulsively, trying to scramble up and away-- but Krycek's hands still held his, and pulled him back again, into the probing kiss. Krycek's tongue sampled Mulder's oddly rich, dark flavor. It was almost wholesome, somehow like grain. Slick and strong, prying Mulder apart, loosening his muscles--

"Krycek, let me go." Mulder's voice wavered, muffled by the mattress.

Krycek closed his eyes, rested his cheek against the curve of Mulder's buttock, letting his stubble raze the tender flesh there.

"But you think you deserve this, don't you, Mulder?"

And he was not so surprised to open his eyes again and see Mulder nod miserably, see his mouth buckle.

Letting go of Mulder's hands, Krycek spread the cheeks of Mulder's ass with one hand. Deliberately, with Mulder's shimmering eyes locked with his, he sucked on his middle finger and worked the blunt fingertip past the initial resisting ring of muscle and up into the passage. Mulder's eyes closed and Krycek could see the muscles jump at his jaw.

Krycek could read only pain in the set of Mulder's features, and saw prismatic tears form in the corners of his lashes.

Mollified, Krycek withdrew his finger, sat back on his heels. Mulder's legs relaxed somewhat, but Krycek could that he'd balled the sheet in one hand and turned his face away, saw the hitch of his shoulders.

"You're the one with the psych degree," Krycek reminded unsympathetically.

Mulder's admission, and his pain, had stung him more than he could admit. But he couldn't think of another reason why Mulder would allow this, would submit to his touch-- Mulder had every reason to hate him, fear him. //I can _hurt_ you.//

Krycek got to his feet in one smooth motion, his hands closed at his sides. The music was a distant, constant jumble, like traffic heard through an open window, punctuated only occasionally by a horn, or the trill of a flute.

At length, Mulder pushed himself up on his hands and turned over, sitting up at the edge of the bed. The tails of his shirt concealed his soft cock. When he spoke, his voice was low and full of tears.

"You were right about my father."

And Krycek remembered, not the trunk that Mulder had spoken of, but Mulder's files, and William Mulder's inferred "relationship" with his son. He remembered what ugly minds had supposed about the man's treatment of a young Fox Mulder.

"He never laid a hand on me, never anything... And that was worse. I _wanted_ \-- I wanted him to hurt me, to punish me. Because I hadn't been able to stop them from taking her..." At the mention of his sister, Mulder faltered. Krycek read his lips: Samantha.

"I hated him, Krycek. And I hated myself for being glad when you killed him." He ground the heel of his hand against his eye. "I hated you, too. But I don't need to be hurt-- I don't want to be hurt anymore.

"So don't hurt me."

When Krycek made no move toward him, Mulder leaned over and picked up his pants. He pulled them up, getting to his feet. Before he could buckle his belt, Krycek stopped his hands.

He had drawn the handcuffs from Mulder's jacket on the table. Dropping to his knees, his chest brushing Mulder's thighs, Krycek lifted his chin. He met Mulder's eyes, gray green and unfocused with old miseries. Placing his hands behind his back, he slipped the cool bracelets against his sweating wrists, and felt them close. The perfect snick of the lock was small and deafening. Mulder's eyes widened.

"Now I can't."

Blood crowded Krycek's cock against the fabric of his trousers, and he let out the smallest sigh. Yes. This is what he wanted.

In Krycek's head, the roaring cacophony had ended with the metal click of locking handcuffs. As he rested his cheek against the other man's belly, the only music left was the faint beat of Mulder's heart.

This was not what he wanted.

Mulder didn't want Krycek on his knees, didn't want the man's face pressed against his stomach. It was too much...

Krycek had been prepared to rape him. The next thought made his heart stammer in his chest. Krycek had been prepared to rape him, and he'd been prepared to _let_ him.

/"But you think you deserve this, don't you, Mulder?"/

Krycek's words echoed in his head. Yes, for a few seconds, he'd felt he'd deserved it. It was only fair, only payback.

But it's not rape if you ask for it, a kinder, saner part of his mind whispered to him. And Krycek's voice again, this time hoarse, hollow, because they were in the trunk again:

/"Goddamn it, Mulder, do it! I'd jerk you off, but my hands are cuffed and I can't reach you." The ensuing jingle of the chain is loud against the background hum of the car and the hush of pavement beneath them. "Fuck me! Because you can, not because I want you to. I don't care why, but Christ, Jesus, please Mulder--"/

I didn't rape him.

And for the first time, Mulder believed it. He'd been sleepless, almost insane with self-loathing, over something that had never actually taken place. Krycek had known what he wanted. Had asked for it.

And so had Mulder. He'd nodded his assent; he'd given Krycek the go ahead. But Krycek had let him go.

What did it mean?

The rhythm of the other man's breathing was eroding his thoughts. He was no longer sure what he was asking about. What did anything mean? In his business, his life, of asking questions, he'd seldom gained an answer worth waiting for.

What did it mean to have Krycek's head cradled in his left hand, as it now was, as Mulder's fingers sank in the plush bristle of Krycek's shaggy crew cut? As those fingers stroked down the back of Krycek's warm neck?

Maybe it meant everything.

Krycek shifted, turned his mouth against Mulder's shirt. Mulder could feel his damp breath steal through two layers of cotton, and felt a sting of longing.

Krycek backed away from him then, trudging on his knees, his pants dragging loudly against the pile of the carpet. And then, with utter grace, and the lovely humility of a supplicant, he bent at the waist, belly to his thighs, and pressed his parted lips to the top of Mulder's bare right foot.

It was shockingly intimate, and somehow more penetrating than Krycek's tongue or finger... Krycek's soft, wet mouth sealed against the thin skin at the top of his foot, unexpectedly hot. A low thrill of pleasure ran up his leg, making his thigh twitch, leaving a wake of heat behind it. It arrowed into Mulder's groin, thrummed in his stiffening erection.

It was as if Krycek's kiss soaked into his bones. Mulder was alive with heat, it flowered in his veins, latticed in glowing bars behind his eyes. He felt a dull throb in his cock, and gasped as Krycek nuzzled into the opening of his trousers: the button held, but his zipper was down.

Krycek's mouth nipped at his swollen cock through his underwear, moistening the cloth with his kisses, and Mulder's paralysis broke. He skipped back, two hasty steps, and fell back onto the bed when he ran into it. He leaned up on his hands, knees splayed, breath ragged.

"Please. Get up, Alex. I don't want you on your knees."

"What about what I want?" His movements sinuous, a dancer's small motions, Krycek made his way toward Mulder, still on his knees. Eyes never leaving him, Krycek situated himself between Mulder's spread thighs. Stretching up to meet Mulder's hanging head, Krycek kissed him, open mouthed.

Mulder's hands closed on Krycek's shoulders, first tensely, then tenderly. He could feel the flutter of Krycek's mink lashes against his cheek. Taste... Alex's tongue surprisingly gentle, lolling against Mulder's teeth, yielding to Mulder's own experimental probing. Sweeping up along Krycek's shoulders, Mulder cupped Krycek's jaw, and tipped his head to one side, his own clumsy nose bumping against Krycek's.

Krycek pulled away, but Mulder held him, gazing into his eyes, brows tensed. He looked like a man trying to read a language that he could no longer remember.

"I won't hurt you," Alex insisted calmly. "Let me do this."

Mulder's hands relaxed, allowed Krycek's head to drop down, to rest briefly on his thigh.

"Take your pants down for me."

Mulder did as Krycek bade him, although his hands shook. His eyes were wide, his breathing uneven, but there was resolve in his eyes. Resolve and desire.

Osweetjesus--

Krycek's mouth was soft, so soft, it was as if he had no teeth at all... That wet hot pressure, that caressing tongue-- Mulder's fingers curled with it. They knew that mouth, learned it before his cock had, in the inky crush of the trunk.

Behind Mulder's eyes, splashes of color, tracers against the velvet backdrop of his lowered lashes. It was as if he'd hit his head too hard, jolting brightness-- Ohhhhh. Krycek was letting him cram himself against the back of Krycek's throat, rub against the ribbed roof of his mouth. Mulder felt as if his brain was imploding; as if Krycek's suckling mouth was drawing Mulder's dissolving spine straight through the slit at the tip of his penis.

Mulder shuddered heavily: a thunderclap of sensation. The net of heat that had radiated from the spot on the top of his foot unraveled and was consolidated, became a single taught thread of desire, long, endless. Mulder felt it spurt out and out and out of his pulsing cockhead, and relished the silky flex of Alex's throat as he swallowed the founting result of Mulder's bucking climax.

Mulder realized that he was staring at the water stained ceiling. Slowly, like a shadow across the sun, Alex's face came into his line of vision. He must have filched the keys from Mulder's jacket pocket, as his freed hands braced on either side of Mulder's head. Krycek's lips were glossed with semen. His sweatdamp hair was matted from where Mulder had gripped his head, and his skin was flushed. Mulder couldn't tell the color of his eyes, but he could read the tenderness there.

He opened his mouth as Krycek lowered his head to kiss him. Strange, the taste of his own come on another man's lips. Not unlike tears...

Krycek drew away, and his smile was insouciant, but his eyes were solemn.

"Thank me, Mulder."

"Thank you," he rasped. He cleared his throat and tried again. "Thank you, Alex."

Alex kissed him again to show Mulder how welcome he was, a searching, lingering kiss that tasted like goodbye, Krycek's hand against Mulder's throat.

And then he eased off the bed and stood up, taking his jacket from underneath Mulder's trenchcoat.

Before Mulder could find the strength to lift his head, Krycek had shrugged into his jacket and lit out, without a backward glance, without closing the motel room door.

Mulder let his head fall back against the mattress and closed his eyes. After a while, he realized that he was cold, and gathered the sheets around him, covering his naked thighs and curling up on the sagging mattress. He was asleep almost instantly.


End file.
